Based on trends I saw at NAB toward RAW workflows migrating toward video from the stills industry, I suspect that our future holds not only more than 12 stops of latitude to do more of the kind of "post lighting" you're talking about here - but the kind of large rasters that allow us to push in to create useable re-framing options in post.

All this is certainly changing how I think about shooting in the field.

It's not necessarily shooting to "fix it" in post - it's more shooting while being mindful about what's possible in post.

FWIW.

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What you propose is not unlike what the greats in photography, Ansel Adams, Walker Evans, Man Ray, all did (they had no choice of course, because the technology was fixed at the time). They shot for a negative which would give them the most latitude in the printing process - the print was everything!

Their greatness lay in what they did in the darkroom after the negative had been produced.

It's true. I worked on a show that interviewed Ansel Adams' son, Michael. When asked what Ansel might have thought about modern tools, he said that Ansel would have loved Photoshop. Michael said that he did a ton of "post-lighting" work in the dark room. He'd use his hands to block out areas of light when developing the print. The key to Ansel's genius was that he knew how to shoot efficiently using the correct filters, film stock, ISO, exposure, etc so that he could give it the final look and make the image pop in the darkroom.

Isn't this par for the course for shooting on film? Exposure, focus and framing in the field and then grade to your liking in post? Obviously that's an oversimplification as everyone (dir, dp, wardrobe, art department, etc.,) has to be on the same page in pre-pro as far as what the final look of the film should be.

A few years ago when I started grading a magazine-style TV show I really got into post lighting. The field lighting was typically pragmatic and unpredictable (sometimes an interview would be outside and other times in would be in an office the size of a closet) but in post using Color I helped shape the lighting to look more purposed. On the wide shots it was harder but on the close-ups I was usually able add separation between the subject and the background, giving the shot a sense of depth it lacked before.

Like in Tony's example, a little bit of love can go a long way in taking a shot from 'meh' to 'niiiiice'.

With more cameras coming out (and at cheaper prices) that have wide dynamic range and recording in raw or lightly compressed codecs the option for more people to light in post will be there, but I think the downsides to raw (storage requirements, processing power, etc.,) will keep a lot of people shooting in H.264 based codecs.

[Franz Bieberkopf]"I have to say that I'm amazed at the low light stuff I've been working with off of Red Epic. Late dusk. Early dawn. And in slow motion ... Really astounding stuff with great detail and low noise that just would not have been possible before."

I'd be curious to know if there's some kind of Moore's Law trend on sensor light sensitivity (which improves dynamic range, and which I think is ultimately more important than resolution).

[Walter Soyka]"I'd be curious to know if there's some kind of Moore's Law trend on sensor light sensitivity (which improves dynamic range, and which I think is ultimately more important than resolution)."

I think it's more a matter of will on the part of camera manufacturers. High dynamic range imaging for video has been possible for a number of years, but Canon, Sony, et al, have been focusing their marketing and development dollars on bigger sensors and proprietary, highly compressed formats. Even now, a lot of shooters are more concerned with full frame sensors and 4k images than really good latitude and open HDR formats. Hopefully this is trend is changing though. You'll also find this to be true in the stills world, camera companies have focused their marketing efforts on selling megapixels and sensor size rather than high dynamic range. For many, 8bit images are just fine... as long as their proprietary raw pictures have more megapixels than everyone else's. :-)

It's a specialized tool that does one thing incredibly well - provide multiple angle of incident facial soft lighting for close ups. If you look at magazine ads for makeup - you'll often catch ring lights in the eye reflections of "whole face" shots. (if they haven't been 'shopped out!)

But the soft effect disappears rapidily over distance, so using one at more than a foot or two from your subject is typically a waste of time - at even 4 feet, a 10" ring light turns into a point source.

Lighting is physics and geometry combined with a brain and eye which have each been trained to intuitively understand the combinations.

This is why their will never be a single light - or even a single type of light - that will do all common lighting tasks well, IMO.

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Shooting with a C300, lighting has a slightly different role than it had in the past. I never use lights for anything except lighting podiums and interviews. For interviews I use lights to soften wrinkles, deal with excessive contrast with the background, or unflattering existing light (ceiling mounted flourescents). I use lights a lot less and am more confident when I don't have the time to set one up.

The lighting gear I use is different now and focused on speed of setup. Basically I use a battery powered softboxed LED for key. Every once in awhile if I have time I'll use an LED backlight. But I'm finding I like the "hyped" look of that less and less. Like everything else, lighting style is constantly evolving. I look at stuff shot in the 90s or 00s that is tightly controlled with lots of backlight and think "ick."

I've been shooting lately on my Canon 5D and even with it set to flat contrast, it obviously doesn't give me the grade range that I have enjoyed with RED & raw formats. I prefer to get lighting right on location where possible with the knowledge of what can be done in post. Tools like Color, da Vinci etc can be very useful to relight but they become very fiddly on moving shots or action within frame. So it is a balance between time spent on location or in post.

Many DPs that I work with have tools like Color and da Vinci and often send their ideas of shot grades ahead of the grading session so most are aware of the balance between location lighting and post lighting fx. All prefer to control lighting on location as the primary and then know what post can do to add or enhance. Just shooting flat and lighting later will often give pleasing results but shooting flat and lighting on location gives the best result.